Experiences with Reliance Broadband in WebWorld
February 14th, 2005 Leave a comment Visited 46 times, 5 so far today
Experiences with Reliance Broadband in WebWorld
I admire Reliance only for one thing; their vision. For them the ends matter, not the means to achieve the same. It was with this object they had set up their vast optic fiber network across India. Early on, they realized that for effective delivery of services, they need to have company owned outlets. Hence the concept of WebWorld was born. It was envisaged to be one stop for all the telecom needs. One could apply for a new telephone connection as well as surf the internet at “real broadband†speeds.
True, the advertisements come as “Real Broadband†speeds. However, broadband for most of the people means that their Internet Explorer is loading up pages faster than their dialup. That probably explains the crowded WebWorlds across the country.
However, today I had a taste of the real broadband that they were offering. As I entered the WebWorld, I was greeted by a pretty young thing with yellow teeth grinning back at me. She asked me to choose the starter pack. I wanted to download the Live CD version of Ubuntu Linux, which is a massive 640 MB download. I asked her about the charges to burn the CD. It was amazing 40 bucks! That too after one provides own blank CD. A bit of haggling and it came down to 15 bucks. Still I feel that it is on the higher side.
Then came the actual brass tacks. After logging in the password, I had to contend with Internet Explorer. Even though I do not like it, I could not install any Opera because of the administrator privileges. This is acceptable to majority of the users, still I always prefer Opera. Using any other browser is a crime! After requesting for the particular page, I sat back and clicked on the download page for the image file. Of course, the pretty young thing kept on hovering near me, which is a strict no no when one needs to surf online. I found that distracting. This said and done, the actual “broadband†speed hovered near 30-35 KBps. For a while, it touched a high of 120 KBps. I thought I was getting my moneys worth. Yet this happiness did not last for long. Suddenly the Explorer refused to respond. The download stopped midway.
After flurry of phone calls to the local tech and in Mumbai, they finally discovered that all they needed to do was to switch off and switch back on the router! Time wasted enough because the people hired to oversee the smooth functioning are not trained to troubleshoot. What if any problem comes during surfing? The standard answer is that for everything they call back Mumbai!
While I was at it, the Internet got back to life. The optimism about Reliance turned to despair. For some time I felt that, I was surfing on Sify “broadbandâ€! The image file to Ubuntu was not loaded and it would easily take in about 6 hours more. I had to request the assistant to manage it for me. Somehow, they agreed! Maybe it was my way of persuasion or they were being helpful, I cannot decide about the same. Hopefully by tomorrow I should get the stuff I wanted. End of pity party!
Reliance has indeed a brilliant business plan. It has set up video conferencing in order to help the smaller businesses to achieve economies of scale. I was told, in the course of conversation, that there were very few people who utilized the services. In the same vein, gamuts of electronic resources are being provided. Yet it remains high priced for an average user. For power users who are used to see speeds zipping in MBps factor would be sorely disappointed. I believe that bandwidth at the user end is good enough for video chat on Yahoo. I d agree about the LCD monitors though. They are good enough for the eye candy and I have found no issue with the same. As regards to Windows XP, it is up to those people to deploy it on such a large scale. I have not played any games on the web because I was not happy with the quality of peripherals. Some of the keyboards refused to work and the mice at times were non-opticals. It was not a happy experience altogether.
What Reliance urgently needs to do is to train the end user assistants. Perhaps change their dresses. In greenish overalls and blue trousers, most of them looked like lost peacocks. It ultimately depends on the assistants as they reflect the company’s image. Reliance should be aware of the same. This is bit controversial here because the average user usually does not mind these bloopers. For me, like most of us browsing this article we need one thing. Bandwidth. If this is satisfied, I am a happy Joe. If this is not, expect more whining on the same!
Discuss on: Reliance Broadband
This post was submitted by Dr. Abhishek Puri on the Broadband Blog on Techwhack.
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May 8th, 2005 at 01:28 pm
Here is my experience with downloading(and loosing) a 377Mb WEBPACK
software (linux version ) from http://www.xilinx.com
On may 6 the morning I started my download at a iway (sify) shop in
Kottayam. Too bad user restrictions, and no download manager on the
machine I got. An hour into downloading IE cancelled the downloading.
A call to the sify admin, and I was shifted to another machine with
DAP. Downloading went for about 200+MB and DAP stopped. I tried to
cancel the download to restart and it crashed. When it was restarted
there was no trace of the download I was doing.
Lost Rs110/-.
Gotton out of there and moved to a webword ( reliance ) shop near
kanjikuzhi. More restrictions on windoz!! But faster ( close to
40-50Kbps). I got a Rs 100/- card and started downloading with IE.
(no DAP, nothing). Then I found mozilla there and decided to get
some links noted – did bit of surfing. Tried saving a small pdf
file and mozilla started complaining about lack of diskspace!!.
Contacted people around there and apparently they were all talking
like George W Bush about web security. ( After all these years of
winows, still they cannot give proper system usage previlages to
user – I could not even use a folder on the system!! I really felt
like my hands tied from behind. What the heck is developers doing
with $$$s Bill Gates is spending for windows ? Probably he should
go for a linux model for windoz, and it will be lot better :-) )
For all the money you spend for Windoz you get a box where the
user can’t even store files in folders – call it security or what
ever!!! – Another point what India is doing with all the hitech
developers ??)
Allright, then suddenly the Exploerer showing contents of the
disk ( which according to the security exports at webworld is not
supposed to happen!!), an they started suspecting me as a hacker
now I started really feeling bad. Time was already close to 6pm
and not enough diskspace. People didn’t know how to free up space!!!
After lots of effort,somehow the person freed up some space, but
unfortunately he didn’t ( couldn’t) check the amount. download
completed and then he told me that the cd-writing charges are 40
first 30MB free, 2Rs per additional MB. Holy Mackeral!!
Then I really noticed one funny thing, the file copied for writing
was only 200+ MB as oppposed to 370+MB downloaded.
Said good bye to the bosses at web world and somehow gotten out from
there.
It is past 6PM. One full day to loose, with around 500MBs.
All thanks to the very special ways of the windoz security exports.
Just wondering with all these software developers, if India is still
not able to handle small issues like this, where are we heading ??
Quote from the web world personal:
“We guarentee speed, not data!!!!!”
Like driving a car that has guarenteed 500Miles speed, no guarentee
on the steering mechanism!!
Feel lightheaded now.
Hope xilinx people will do something about the file size something!!
(split the installer using split and make the split stuff available?)
1. split file ; #( at xilinx end )
2. cat xa* > file ; #( at user end )
May 8th, 2005 at 02:58 am
Here is my experience with downloading(and loosing) a 377Mb WEBPACK
software (linux version ) from http://www.xilinx.com
On may 6 the morning I started my download at a iway (sify) shop in
Kottayam. Too bad user restrictions, and no download manager on the
machine I got. An hour into downloading IE cancelled the downloading.
A call to the sify admin, and I was shifted to another machine with
DAP. Downloading went for about 200+MB and DAP stopped. I tried to
cancel the download to restart and it crashed. When it was restarted
there was no trace of the download I was doing.
Lost Rs110/-.
Gotton out of there and moved to a webword ( reliance ) shop near
kanjikuzhi. More restrictions on windoz!! But faster ( close to
40-50Kbps). I got a Rs 100/- card and started downloading with IE.
(no DAP, nothing). Then I found mozilla there and decided to get
some links noted – did bit of surfing. Tried saving a small pdf
file and mozilla started complaining about lack of diskspace!!.
Contacted people around there and apparently they were all talking
like George W Bush about web security. ( After all these years of
winows, still they cannot give proper system usage previlages to
user – I could not even use a folder on the system!! I really felt
like my hands tied from behind. What the heck is developers doing
with $$$s Bill Gates is spending for windows ? Probably he should
go for a linux model for windoz, and it will be lot better :-) )
For all the money you spend for Windoz you get a box where the
user can’t even store files in folders – call it security or what
ever!!! – Another point what India is doing with all the hitech
developers ??)
Allright, then suddenly the Exploerer showing contents of the
disk ( which according to the security exports at webworld is not
supposed to happen!!), an they started suspecting me as a hacker
now I started really feeling bad. Time was already close to 6pm
and not enough diskspace. People didn’t know how to free up space!!!
After lots of effort,somehow the person freed up some space, but
unfortunately he didn’t ( couldn’t) check the amount. download
completed and then he told me that the cd-writing charges are 40
first 30MB free, 2Rs per additional MB. Holy Mackeral!!
Then I really noticed one funny thing, the file copied for writing
was only 200+ MB as oppposed to 370+MB downloaded.
Said good bye to the bosses at web world and somehow gotten out from
there.
It is past 6PM. One full day to loose, with around 500MBs.
All thanks to the very special ways of the windoz security exports.
Just wondering with all these software developers, if India is still
not able to handle small issues like this, where are we heading ??
Quote from the web world personal:
“We guarentee speed, not data!!!!!”
Like driving a car that has guarenteed 500Miles speed, no guarentee
on the steering mechanism!!
Feel lightheaded now.
Hope xilinx people will do something about the file size something!!
(split the installer using split and make the split stuff available?)
1. split file ; #( at xilinx end )
2. cat xa* > file ; #( at user end )
May 9th, 2005 at 11:23 pm
if your description is correct, i don’t think about any more reason why we are not a technology superpower. but i appreciate your efforts. anyway, i’ve the windows version of the software. if you want, i can send it by post to you.
May 9th, 2005 at 12:53 pm
if your description is correct, i don’t think about any more reason why we are not a technology superpower. but i appreciate your efforts. anyway, i’ve the windows version of the software. if you want, i can send it by post to you.
July 17th, 2005 at 03:57 pm
hai im gaffar
July 17th, 2005 at 05:27 am
hai im gaffar
December 24th, 2005 at 09:25 am
ihad sify broadband connection for last one year. but i tell you they had very poor service and they do not care for customer also.
now i am taking reliance broadband it has launced recently in our area.and there charges are reasonable. they are giving a speed of 1
mbps for just 600 rs and it is a dsl connection.
December 24th, 2005 at 08:55 pm
ihad sify broadband connection for last one year. but i tell you they had very poor service and they do not care for customer also.
now i am taking reliance broadband it has launced recently in our area.and there charges are reasonable. they are giving a speed of 1
mbps for just 600 rs and it is a dsl connection.
April 30th, 2006 at 08:55 pm
Comment by George Varughese — 08th May 2005 @ 01:28 pm
now read this. .and stop worrying about disk space.
Change default Internet Explorer Download Directory
In Regedit go to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer
Change the value of the string “Download Directory” to the new path you want to assign as IE’s Default Download directory i.e. “D:\” has been assigned as my new download directory. . .
April 30th, 2006 at 10:25 am
Comment by George Varughese — 08th May 2005 @ 01:28 pm
now read this. .and stop worrying about disk space.
Change default Internet Explorer Download Directory
In Regedit go to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftInternet Explorer
Change the value of the string “Download Directory” to the new path you want to assign as IE’s Default Download directory i.e. “D:” has been assigned as my new download directory. . .
May 11th, 2006 at 07:49 pm
I’m planning to go for the R connect Sierra Card of Reliance for my home office . Pls share your user exp in terms of speed and service
May 11th, 2006 at 09:19 am
I’m planning to go for the R connect Sierra Card of Reliance for my home office . Pls share your user exp in terms of speed and service
May 18th, 2006 at 09:37 am
Hey all,
bad Experience! Companies show very shining things about their customer services, we expect them to provide very good service and when they fail we cry.
Never expect things that not gona happen. It starts from MTNL to Relience All are same.
May 17th, 2006 at 11:07 pm
Hey all,
bad Experience! Companies show very shining things about their customer services, we expect them to provide very good service and when they fail we cry.
Never expect things that not gona happen. It starts from MTNL to Relience All are same.